Bella's First Choice
by jusobele
Summary: One shot which placed third in Tricky Raven's Father's Day Contest. Follow Jake and Bella on their journey to giving Jake the family he so deserves. Unbetaed. Thank you to Nikita for her amazing prompt for this contest which inspired so many writers and artists.


**A/N: This is just a little Father's Day fluff for fun:D It was written for Tricky Raven's Father's Day Contest and came 3rd. Unbeta-ed, unedited and therefore a little rough... But please enjoy!**

Edward left and, eventually, Bella chose Jacob.

It should have been easy. And at first, it was. Jacob had what he wanted, **who **he wanted, and as far as he was concerned, this was his forever. Billy was happy. Charlie was ecstatic. Bella smiled as an everyday occurrence and when she laughed, it was with genuine mirth. Jacob loved to be the one to make her laugh. He loved watching as her eyes began to sparkle at him and then the laughter bubbled to the surface. It was like bringing her alive again, every single time.

Together, they were so damn good. Jake with his Bells. They were healthy, inquisitive teenagers and their early fumblings turned into an active sex life. Bella began taking birth control pills and Jake dreamed of making her his wife and fathering her children.

It was the damn pack mind that began to sour it. Paul and Leah were the only ones who ever said it outright. But the flavour was there, even in Quil and Embry's minds.

_Second best. Second choice. Leech lover. Second second second._

Jacob spent nearly a year trying to ignore it. Trying to tell himself it didn't matter. Cullen wouldn't be back, not in Bella's lifetime anyway. She had chosen him, Jacob, instead. But at the end of the day, the sunny boy that had brought a lifeless girl back from the brink of depression-induced insanity, was growing up into a proud young man. He was born to lead, to be Alpha, to be Chief. Being second best was not an option for Jacob Black.

Finally, a year almost to the day after he had kissed her for the first time, Jake sat Bella down to talk.

"What would you do, Bella? If **he **came back now. If he wanted you back. Would you stay with me, or go with him?" He knew the answer. He knew he didn't want to hear her say it. But he couldn't be second to anyone. Or, in this case, any**thing.**

"Why are you asking me this, Jake?" Bella's eyes grew round with horror and Jake felt barbed wire tear at his heart because it was him inflicting this pain on her. "It doesn't matter. He's not coming back."

"I just need to know, Bells," he persisted. "Would you choose to stay with me, if he came back?" Jake didn't know why he was insisting on pushing their relationship towards this certain and sudden death. He just knew that _second second second _could not be his future.

With tears on her cheeks now, Bella reached out to grasp his hands. "Don't do this, Jake. I was honest with you. I told you, I'll never be whole. I'll never run right. You knew! Don't do this now!"

"Say it," he demanded. Why was he pushing this?

_Second second second._

Her words wouldn't have been audible except for his damned wolf hearing. Damn pack mind. Damn this whole fucking world of supernatural.

"I would choose him."

It was a death knoll. They both knew it. They carried on, and pretended, but what they had was gone. It only took a few months for Jacob to tell Bella the one thing he never, ever thought he could. _It's over._

She had cried, but she hadn't fallen apart at the seams. He had hated himself for **wanting **her eyes to look dead. For wanting her to hold her arms tightly around her chest and double over from the pain of losing him. Because if she had only shown him that she could love him the way she had loved the bloodsucker, he would have gone down on bended knee right there and begged her to stay with him forever.

Instead, she had pleaded with him not to leave her. He was her sun, she needed him to make her feel alive and whole. He couldn't break up with her, she needed him. Yet through her tears and her demands, Jacob clearly saw that it was **his **heart that was splintering, **his **stomach that was churning, **his **mind that was being raked with the sharp claws of _what if._

They eventually managed to salvage something of their earlier friendship, kind of. Bella found a job in a bookstore in Port Angeles and moved into an apartment there. She actually made some friends. Jake finished high school and found a job in a garage in Forks. He moved out of his father's home and into a small house in Forks, close to his work. He dated a little, always disastrously. They talked on the phone once every other week and when Bella visited Charlie, she always met up with Jake too. Emotions ran deep on both sides, so they kept all their conversations inconsequential. But they were too important to each other to give up on their friendship altogether.

Jake wasn't particularly surprised when Bella invited him to Port Angeles for her 21st birthday. She was having a small party, she said. Just a few people she cared about the most that she wanted to celebrate with. There was never any doubt that Jake would go. He actually quite enjoyed it, watching Bella interact with the new people in her life. She seemed to be getting herself together somehow, standing on her own feet instead of leaning on other people to support her through her life. Jake felt proud of her for that and found himself hoping all over again. Maybe one day, she would still choose him.

He was the last to leave her party. She walked him finally to the door and the way she smiled up at him nearly brought him to his knees. He wasn't thinking when he kissed her. He wasn't thinking when he lifted her from her feet and felt her legs wrap tightly around his waist. He wasn't thinking when he laid her on her bed and slowly undressed her, kissing every centimetre of her skin as he exposed it. He wasn't thinking when he drank every drop of nectar her body willingly gave him. He sure as hell wasn't thinking when he came in her mouth the first time, and inside her the second and third times.

It was only when he awoke the next morning and the first thing he smelled was _sex with Bella, _that his brain began to re-engage. The bed was empty. He found her in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and cradling a cup of coffee. Wordlessly, she poured him a coffee and when their eyes met, he saw it.

_Second second second._

Still second choice. Always second best.

Jake left immediately. Anger and self-loathing dulled the pain for a while, but after a few weeks he couldn't deny that his heart was in tatters, again. He refused to take her calls and despised that every time he was alone, he relived the night they had spent together.

He had just arrived home from work one day, six weeks after Bella's birthday, when he heard it outside his front door. He would know it anywhere. Bella's heartbeat. The second, faster and fainter heartbeat, hit him when he opened the door and made him stagger. He knew immediately why she was here.

"I can't do this on my own, Jake," she pleaded with him. She looked terrible. She had always been pale skinned, but now she was chalk white. She couldn't keep any food down, she told him. She was tired all the time. She was overwhelmed.

They talked for hours. Bella had been on birth control when they had been together before and Jake had just presumed, without thinking, that she still would be. She had no reason to be, she told him. He wasn't the only one who hadn't been thinking.

Jake never doubted what he would do. This was his child, his responsibility. His wolf could smell his own puppy and howled in delight. The man who longed for a family with his Bells was thrilled. For the second time in his life, Jake told himself he could live like this. He could accept what Bella was offering him, even if it wasn't quite the way he had dreamed of it.

_Second second second._

Jake asked Bella to marry him. She refused. She didn't want to tie him to her like this. She just needed him to be here for her, for now. He accepted her decision but told her the baby was his as much as hers, and she needed to remember that. She agreed.

_Second second second. _

Bella did agree to moving in with him. He wanted to provide for her and she truthfully needed to be close to him. She gave up her job and her apartment. She looked after him, kept his house and cooked for him. In return, he was her Jake, her sun, her best friend while she struggled with the early weeks of pregnancy. Sometimes, they made love, the need for comfort overwhelming one or the other of them. Sometimes, she said 'I love you'. He always said it back, because he really and truly did. He told himself he was happy.

_Second second second._

Bella moved out of her first trimester of pregnancy and everybody said she glowed. She smiled and she laughed. She took Jake's hand whenever they were walking somewhere together. She seemed excited when she made plans with him for their baby. They started to look at strollers and cribs. Jake found himself believing that it was real. This was his Bells, and she was carrying his baby, and they had a future together.

Always, the pack mind was there to bring him back to reality.

_Second choice. Second best. Fucked up. Mistake. Not gonna last. Second second second. _

**Paul - **_Jeez, Jake, you've fuckin' tied her to the tribe now. That's a wolf she's carryin'. Asshole. _

**Quil - **_Typical Bella, Jake. She needs you so she's here. Just wait till she doesn't need you anymore though._

**Jared - **_Hope it was worth it, man. Cos that's the rest of your life you just screwed up._

Strangely, Leah was on Jake's side now. Some kind of happy was better than being miserable all the time, she told him. He wanted to believe her. But when he said the name "Edward" one day, talking about a customer and in no way referring to a Cullen, the pain in Bella's eyes kicked him in the gut. She stiffened the next time he tried to kiss her. Hurt, he stopped himself from making all physical contact with her until she started to initiate it again herself. It took over a week.

_Second second second._

When Bella was nearly five months pregnant, Jake wandered out of the garage one lunchtime to get something to eat. He stopped in his tracks the second the cloying smell assaulted his nostrils. Within seconds, he was tearing up the street towards the nearest treeline. He heard the pack howling before he made it to the forest and he knew.

They were back. The Cullens had returned to Forks.

Exploding into his wolf, Jake saw the confirmation in Seth's mind. Mom and Dad Leech were back, with Edward. It could only mean one thing. They couldn't stay here, Edward clearly wouldn't have aged. It had been too long. He was back for Bella.

**Embry - **_His scent is heading to your place, Jake._

Knowing he couldn't run wolf through Forks, Jake headed back to his car and fought the trembling desire to phase as he raced towards his home. He knew he was too late. He knew the semi-dream he had been living was already over. But he was damned if he was going to let her leave without telling him to his face. And there was the baby ... _The baby. _Jake's heart cracked as his temper flared.

The car fishtailed round the last corner and skidded to a halt outside his home, sending gravel flying. Jake was mildly satisfied to see some stones ricocheting off the marble statue who dared to stand on the steps of his home, even though he knew there would be no sting.

Bella stood on the porch, her face stunned and her heart racing too fast. Jake's blood was thundering through his veins and making it difficult to hear what was being said. As he stepped shaking out of the car though, he made out enough to know that Edward was apologising, pleading, and asking for Bella to take him back.

Jake's wolf wanted to rip through him and tear the leech limb from limb, but the man was paralysed with grief and fear. He knew what her decision was. He knew she was leaving him and taking their child with her. Willing himself to make some kind of a stand, he began walking towards them. The bloodsucker never even turned to acknowledge him. _Fucker. I know you see what this is doing to me._

Meeting Bella's eyes, Jake saw the naked pain in them. Her heart stuttered and lurched, and as they stared at each other, it gradually settled into the rhythm he was familiar with. Not taking her eyes from his, Bella began to walk down the stairs towards him. Jake stopped walking, and waited for the death blow. She stopped right in front of him. Her eyes were brimming with tears now as she reached her hand up and touched his cheek.

"I am ... **so sorry**," she told him, shaking her head. He wondered if he would ever take some kind of comfort from the fact that she so obviously meant it, from the depths of her being. Turning back to Edward, Bella inexplicably leaned back against Jacob's chest. Her voice rang out clear and strong when she spoke to the smirking bloodsucker who was watching them.

"You need to leave," she said. Jake opened his mouth to protest angrily that this was his home when he realised that she seemed to be talking to the leech. Confused, he looked down at his Bells as she turned back to face him again. Her eyes were swimming with tears and simultaneously dancing with joy when she said the three words he never, ever thought he would hear. "I choose Jacob."

_First._

Jake was frozen to the spot, his eyes searching Bella's and seeing the truth in them. Edward was scoffing somewhere in the background. "Don't be ridiculous, love. What can he offer you?"

Bella was smiling, then laughing as she answered. "A lifetime. Happiness. Respect. Children. Warmth. **Love.**" Her eyes never left Jake's as she continued, laughing and crying simultaneously. "I've been a fool. Years ... **years **of deluding myself." Sobering up, she kept talking. "Years of pushing you away," she acknowledged. "Jacob I am so sorry. I don't know why ... I needed to see him again, to know. It's you. It's always been you. It always will be you. Can you forgive me?" She said the last fearfully, as though it may be too late. As if it could ever be too late.

_First._

Jake's heart was too full for words. He kept their gazes locked as he lifted her into his arms. _His Bells. _Walking past the leech who soiled his yard, Jake simply snarled, "Leave now," as he passed. He carried Bella inside, kicking the door shut behind him.

_First._

They never made it to the bedroom. Never in all the times they had joined their bodies together, had there been passion like this. Bella was clinging to Jacob as though he was the sun, the oxygen, she had always claimed him to be. He clung to her with the desperate need to finally, **finally**, make her his. Unequivocally, indisputably, his.

_First._

Clothes were shredded and strewn on the floor. Their tongues tangled together, teeth grazed and bit at one another as a fire was ignited between them that was brand new to them both. Bella had always held a part of herself back from him. Jake had always been tender and careful with her. Now, for the first time, they bared every part of their love, their souls, their naked desire to one another. Like molten lava, their desire for each other flowed harder and faster until it was an unstoppable force of nature.

Sitting Bella naked on the kitchen counter, Jacob looked into her eyes, smiling at the expression in them as he pushed himself inside her.

_First._

Bella's nails dug into his back as his thrusts into her body became more powerful. She broke through skin as she tried in vain to keep her orgasm at bay. She wanted to enjoy this for longer but Jake was having none of it.

"We're just gettin' started, Bells," he told her, knowing she understood the double meaning in his words. Her eyes were still locked on his when she convulsed around him, her whole body shuddering in his arms and his name falling from her lips like a blessed prayer.

_First._

Jake came moments later, so hard his vision blurred and he doubted he would ever see straight again. They clung to each other for a while, both speechless from their climaxes and the events of the last half hour.

Finally, Jake pulled his head back to look at her. She looked back at him, love and something like awe in her eyes.

"You choose me." He had to hear it again, had to check.

"I choose you. I love you. I'm **in **love with you. I want you. I need you. I adore you." Every sentence was punctuated with kisses until Jake was laughing and kissing her back with every single ounce of love his heart possessed for her.

_First._

He never made it back to work that afternoon. He phoned and said he'd taken sick. His first sick day ever. Instead, he made love again and again with his Bells, and they talked themselves hoarse. Little was said that hadn't been said before, but there was a new light shining on it now.

"I think I needed closure," Bella told him candidly. They had finally made it to the bed, and she was sitting up, tangled in his legs as he propped himself up against the headboard. "I had this vision in my mind, this ideal that I was clinging on to. It was a dream, a fantasy, and nothing could compare with it. But when he was there, in front of me ... It was completely wrong. All I could think of was you, and our baby, and how much I'd put you through. You've loved me unconditionally for years, and because of six months with him, I threw it all back at you." Her tears were close again and Jake leaned forward to kiss her. "I'm sorry," she whispered, for the umpteenth time that afternoon. "Can you forgive me?"

"Do I look like I'm holding grudges? Bella, I don't care," he told her. "I thought you were leaving with him. But you're here, and you choose me. I'm your first choice, and I don't care how long it took you to realise it. The fact that you did realise it finally, makes me so fuckin' happy that I would take all the heartbreak all over again, just to get here. Put it behind you, honey. Let's just move on now. But no more holding back from me, 'kay?"

Bella didn't hold back. In fact, over the next weeks and months, she did the exact opposite. She threw herself into making up for the years of pain she had inflicted on the man she had always been destined to spend her life with. If she had been looking after him before, she devoted her life to him now. She made him special dinners. She put little notes in with his lunch every day that made him smile and, sometimes, forced him to run home for a quickie in the middle of the day. They were insatiable. She ran him baths and gave him languorous massages after them.

Jake laughed and told her she didn't need to go to all that trouble for him. But really, he loved it and she knew it. He loved that she spent so much time thinking of ways to surprise him and show how much she cared about him. He was overwhelmed by the efforts she went to to compensate for her past blindness.

_First._

Bella went to great pains to bond with every pack member and their girlfriends. She thought it would take a long time, but Jake helped her out by showing the pack what had happened with Edward. He also showed them how hard she was trying to make amends. And there was no denying the fact that Jacob Black was beyond happy. One by one, they gradually came around. Even Paul managed some kind of civility sometimes.

Jake wasn't surprised when he came home from work one evening in March and found candles lit all over their home. The smell of whatever she was making for dinner had him salivating like the dog he was. Mingled in with his food, was the scent of his Bells and his baby. Home.

She greeted him with a deep kiss and a tight hug, just like always. She was six months pregnant and they had to accommodate her burgeoning bump when they hugged now, but it didn't matter. They both loved it. Jake pulled back to look at her. She was nervous about something. He could sense it emanating from her, and he saw it in her eyes.

"What's wrong, honey?" He needed her to tell him so he could fix it, but she just shook her head at him.

"Go wash up for dinner."

Throughout the meal, Bella was on edge. Her face was flushed and she was distracted during their conversations. Jake watched her carefully, but couldn't see any sign that she was upset. She was just ... antsy.

Finally, when they had finished eating, Bella took a deep breath and stood up. She stretched out her hand to him and when he took it, she tugged on his until he stood with her. Leading him to the living room, she put on some music and asked him to dance with her. Confused but willing to indulge whatever she wanted, Jake wrapped her in his arms and danced with her to the slow tempo that filled the room.

"I'm so glad Edward came here," Bella said eventually. His name tripped easily from her tongue and Jake watched her closely, wondering what was coming next. "I hate to think what stupid mistakes I would have continued to make if he hadn't."

"I like to think you would have got there eventually," Jake told her wryly.

"Maybe. But meantime, I would still be deluding myself instead of living the most wonderful life I could ever imagine, with you." She looked straight into his eyes. "I love you with all my heart, Jacob Black."

_First._

She took a step back from him, and without taking her eyes from him, she dropped to one knee. "I don't want to waste any more time, Jake. You asked me once to marry you, but it was for the wrong reasons. I want to spend my life with you. I want to give you a whole house full of children. I want to grow old beside you. I want to spend every night sleeping in your arms, and wake up beside you every morning. And I want to do all that, while I call you my husband." She laughed suddenly. "You're supposed to be standing."

Jake grinned when he realised he had dropped to his knees beside her. He could hardly believe what he was hearing, but the tears in her eyes and the honesty in her voice convinced him.

"Marry me, Jake. Please."

"Immediately," was all the answer she got before she was on her back on the floor, her lips being assaulted by those of ... her fiance.

They married at Easter, a small ceremony in front of their fathers, her mother, the pack, and Bella's friends from Port Angeles. A small party at Charlie's finished the day off. Jake almost burst with pride every time he looked at his wife. She was wearing a white dress which didn't even attempt to hide her flourishing bump. The baby was due in two months' time, and Jake wasn't sure he could wait that long.

He didn't have to. His son was impatient. Two weeks before he was due, Jake woke in the middle of the night when Bella gasped and grabbed onto his arm.

"My water just broke!" she cried. Jake froze for a moment. Bella's eyes were wide with fear and his mind went blank.

"Jake!" she yelled, pulling him back to his senses.

"Baby," he muttered. "Right."

Half an hour later, he helped her out of the car at Forks Hospital. They had phoned ahead, and he had remembered to take the bag she had packed the week before. He had even remembered to bring the car seat, gulping when he realised it wouldn't be empty on the return journey.

Antony William Black was big, and he was strong, and as Jacob watched his tiny wife endure wave after wave of pain, he swore he would never put her through this again. He pulled Bella's hair back into a messy bun when she complained about it. He rubbed her back and let her squeeze his hand so tightly she actually hurt him. He got in the nurses way and winced at Bella's moans and screams.

Finally, after a too long time confined in the delivery room, Antony kicked and screamed his way into the world. Tears joined with laughter as Jake and his Bells clung to each other and worshipped the son they had made together. Bella needed stitches, and while the doctors worked on her, Jacob held his tiny son in his large, protective hands as though he were the most precious thing in the world. He was, to his parents at least.

Bella watched as her strong, masculine husband fell completely in love with his little boy. The smile on his face was beautiful. He was entranced, bewitched and a little bewildered. Bella couldn't stop her own tears as she thanked God that she had seen the light and come to her senses before she had broken Jacob Black beyond repair.

He caught her eye and she saw the tears glistening in his own. As always, he knew what she was thinking and he shook his head slightly at her.

"Put it in the past, Bells," he told her gently. "This is us, now." He looked back in awe at the tiny child nestling in his hands. "This is our family."

They settled quickly into their roles as parents. Jacob was more or less running the garage now, and wanted to buy it from the current owner when he retired in a few years. His track record as an employee allowed him to ask for, and be granted, a few weeks off work. Everything about fatherhood suited him. His enormous heart, capable of so much love, lavished adoration on little Antony. He changed diapers and walked around with the tiny child, crooning him to sleep. When Bella desperately needed to rest between feeds, Jake sometimes sat with his baby, just revelling in all the feelings that fatherhood elicited from him.

When Jake finally had to return to work, he missed Bells and Antony each moment he was away. Racing home at the end of each day, he would kiss his wife and gently pick up his son. As the weeks passed and Antony began to smile and interact, Bella would laugh as she watched them. Antony's whole face lit up the instant he heard his father's voice calling that he was home. The little boy would squirm in her arms until Jacob took him from her. Squealing and smiling, the baby would accept the kisses his daddy peppered all over his face before trying to grab handfuls of Jacob's hair. For his part, Jake's face would radiate absolute joy.

Bella, quite simply, could not imagine any other life than the perfect happiness of the one she had right now.

**Two Years Later**

"Wipe that grin off your face, Jacob Black!" Bella snapped at him. Undaunted, her husband continued to beam widely as he watched her pace around the room. He was sitting on their bed, his knees bent, his five month old son Marcus Charles propped against his legs. Marcus had a tight grip on his daddy's finger and was concentrating hard on trying to pull it into his little mouth. At the last second, Jake would divert his hand to tickle under the baby's chin, laughing at the sound of his boy's chuckles as the baby began the process all over again. Antony was kneeling on the bed, egging his father on. Not, Bella thought, that Jacob needed any egging on. He had been born to be a husband and father.

Her face softening at that thought, Bella climbed onto the bed beside her three boys. "How could this have happened?" she asked. Jake caught her eye with a smirk, and raised an eyebrow at her. "You know what I mean!" she scolded him. "We've been careful!"

"Uh, no we haven't, honey," Jake corrected her.

"We have!" she protested.

"That morning in the shower?" he asked.

"That was different. You looked ..." Bella glanced at Antony and then said, "Well you were all wet and soapy and ... anyway."

"Still weren't careful. And what about the night we went out?"

"That was different too! You know I'd had too much to drink and we were in the forest anyway."

Jake laughed loudly. "That makes a difference? Did you ever attend a Biology class at school, Bells? And what about the night in the kitchen?"

"That was last month."

"This month too," he reminded her. "Ah c'mon Bells, we haven't been that careful. And this is good news, honey. I know we didn't plan it but let's face it, we haven't planned any of them. We're just not that good at family planning." He shrugged. "Wouldn't change any of it for the world, though." He lifted Marcus up over his head and swooshed him around making airplane noises before bringing him down to his face and blowing raspberries on his tummy.

"You'll make him sick," Bella said automatically. "What are we going to tell everyone, Jake? There's only going to be a year between this baby and Marcus, and Antony's less than two years older again."

"What do you mean what are we going to tell everyone? We tell them that we can't keep our hands off each other, and we make beautiful babies. Both of which are true." Jake was so totally unbothered by their situation, other than to be ecstatic at the thought of another child, that Bella felt herself relax. Laying the baby safely in the middle of the bed, Jacob sternly told Antony not to jump on his brother, and pulled Bella into his arms. "I love you," he whispered against her lips.

"I know you do. And I love you. I just ... I really need to go through another pregnancy and labour?" She groaned at the thought.

"But look what you get at the end, honey," Jake told her. They looked at their two boys on the bed. Antony had lain beside his baby brother and was trying to copy the raspberry blowing his daddy did. Marcus was hiccuping as he looked at his big brother's face, which was red from his efforts. Meeting her husband's eyes again, Bella smiled.

"You're right," she told him. "And I did promise you a house full of kids."

"We didn't say this house though," Jake responded with a grin. "I think we need to fill a bigger one."

And they did.


End file.
